Rebuilding Life and Love
by Zoakdo
Summary: Sequal to Meapless in Seattle.  Isabella is discharged from the hospital only to find new challenges await her.  Can she and Phineas rise up to face them together, or will they be crushed like their beloved city?
1. Chapter 1

Hello all. Welcome to my sequal to Meapless in Seattle. I hope you all enjoy it.

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"Are you ready to go," Vivian asked her daughter for possibly the zillionth time. Isabella didn't speak, but nodded in response. The January air bit at their faces as they entered the parking lot. Vivian seemed to hate the cold like everyone else did, but Isabella loved it. Even this bitter, painful biting sensation on her face reminded her that she was free now. Free from the countless tests and questions about how she was feeling. Now she could go back home and live her life as a fourteen year old girl instead of as a porcelain doll. She was about to get to live again. Her doctors were surprised that she had recovered so quickly, attributing it to her young body and relatively short time spent in puberty. Also, her strong desire to leave didn't hurt. The only thing that kept her from jumping out of the hospital window to escape were the visits from Phineas. They were a couple now, and spent as much time as they could holding, touching, and kissing. Since her mom had become incredibly paranoid during the invasion and the doctors tended to be hard asses, they decided to keep it a secret. This put limitations on what they were able to do since they needed to break apart at a moment's notice, but her freedom gave them more lenience to what they could get away with.

"Isabella." Her mother started a few blocks away from their home, snapping the young girl out of her memories of a particularly warm Christmas she had spent with Phineas.

"Yeah mom?" she returned, still in a daze.

"Some things have changed since you've been in the hospital," she said.

"I know," Isabella groaned, unsure of her point. The entire school had been destroyed, leaving the students that were left with no way to educate themselves. Both Phineas and her had been taking their eighth grade classes online and were doing splendid. The high school was still fine, so they'd be able to go there next year. Luckily, the antique shop had been unharmed, so the Flynn-Fletchers were able to stay here.

"We haven't told you everything that happened so not to distress you," she explained, her accent making the words seem like tragic lines written by Shakespeare himself. "I just want you to be prepared."

"I doubt what you show me could surprise me," she replied, sounding much more like a stuck up brat than she used to as the car turned onto her street. She had fought robots and aliens in a space station orbiting above Danville with the fate of the world resting in her hands. She had learned how to fight and destroy in minutes. Not much would catch her off guard. But the destruction of her house was one thing that could.

"What happened!" she exclaimed as she gawked at the empty lot she had lived at not too long ago.

"I'm so sorry Isabella," her mother said, her own voice choking up. "One of the pieces of the space station fell onto our house, crushing it." Isabella sunk back into her seat, defeated. Her mom couldn't afford to buy another house. She had barely been able to make the payments on the last one. Not only that, but all of her precious things had been there. Now they were all…gone. Isabella didn't even notice that Vivian had pulled into the Flynn-Fletcher driveway until the motor was turned off.

"What are we doing here?" Isabella asked drearily as her mom exited the car. Isabella reluctantly followed, knowing she would be saying goodbye to living next door to Phineas. She had had so many fantasies about what they would do now that they were a couple. They were all smashed. She didn't even think she could look Phineas in the eye under these circumstances. When she entered the building, she found Phineas and Mr. Fletcher waiting for them.

"Welcome home," Lawrence said in his British accent, obviously quite happy. Isabella's jaw dropped when she heard this. Phineas walked up to her and grasped her hand, looking deep into her eyes.

"Welcome home," he said to her, echoing his step-father's sentiment with a deepness all his own. "Dad, I'll explain to her what's going on," he said, suddenly turning to Lawrence.

"Good idea Phineas," his father responded. Phineas pulled on Isabella's hand, leading her upstairs to Candace's room. Phineas opened the door for her, revealing something quite different from Candace's room. It was an exact replica of her old room.

"How did you-"

"Candace left for college in New York. I asked her if I could do this for you and she agreed," Phineas explained. "I've seen enough of your room to be able to recreate it. Not to mention," he said, walking over to some of the various items strewn across the room, "most of these are from your old room. It was relatively untouched by the impact."

"You're amazing Phineas," Isabella said, looking at all of the things that she had believed gone just a moment ago. Then her eyes fell on the foot of her bed where a small, circular bed was missing. "Pinky…" she sighed, tears threatening to return. She felt Phineas' arm suddenly wrap around her shoulders, pulling her close to him. Both teens had lost their beloved pets in the chaos. They had lost precious friends as well as countless others. They were each other's' entire world.

"Isabella," he mumbled before pulling her in for a kiss. It started out gentle and sweet like they usually were, but something was different. Phineas was fiercer than he usually was. He pushed her back and onto her bed. Something was changing inside of him, and whatever it was it scared the hell out of Isabella.

"Not so rough," she moaned as he attacked her neck, still in a frenzy. She tried to put up with it, but then felt his cold hand slipping up past the bottom of her sweater and making contact with the warm skin underneath. "No!" she yelled, almost throwing Phineas off of her. Her arms instinctively wrapped around her chest as she stared at her secret boyfriend in fear. "We can't."

"Isabe-"

"Just go," she interrupted him, one arm extending a finger towards the door as she turned her entire head away. She wouldn't be able to look at him like this. The slamming door was all the confirmation she needed to know her order had been obeyed. She curled up for a much too long time as she tried to sort through all the things that had just happened. She eventually pulled herself up and looked in the mirror. She didn't know what possessed Phineas to try what he did. Her hair was a bit messy since she had been lying on her bed, but was still long and shiny. It reached the small of her back. Her outfit was simple enough with a purple and pink striped sweater and a pair of new blue jeans. She had her height, but Phineas had overtaken her in the last year. And she had zero sex appeal compared some of the other girls she had seen at the hospital. Her chest was still flat as a board while twelve year olds were developing.

"Isa! Dinner!" her mother yelled from downstairs. Isabella jumped and looked at the clock. She had been out of it a lot longer than she thought. She stopped with the self-criticism and left for the meal. The four people living in the house had a fabulous meal obviously made by Ms. Garcia-Shapiro. Both the adults asked about how Isabella was adjusting to the new surroundings. Since this house had been her home away from home for almost a decade, it wasn't too hard of a transition. She answered the questions appropriately while avoiding Phineas' gaze and answering any questions he posed as quickly as possible. He excused himself once it became obvious he wasn't going to get anywhere.

The rest of the night was equally uneventful but just as stressful for Isabella. When she was taking a shower, she continued to judge her body and wonder what on earth could possess him to be attracted to it. The earlier events made her paranoid. Every sound made in the hall was him sneaking into the bathroom to finish what he had started earlier. She cut the shower as short as she could and was dressed in record time. She left, expecting Phineas to be crouching at the door, but he wasn't. She found him sitting in his room, watching a movie with headphones. She went to sleep early that night, fitful dreams haunting her slumber.

It was three AM when she was finally roused by another nightmare. She lay in bed, trying to wonder if this was how her life was going to be. As she weighed prospective solutions, she heard a muffled sound accompanied with a slight banging sound. She froze in bed, not even breathing. The sound happened again, no louder or quieter than the first. With great uncertainty matched only by her great curiosity, she got up and entered the hall. As she walked down the hall, the sound got a bit louder until she found its source: Phineas' room. More terror spread through her body as she grasped the doorknob and turned.

Inside was the same way had been earlier that evening. She walked over to Phineas' bed to see the boy face down in his pillow, sobs wracking his body. Isabella stared in shock at the boy that hadn't cried once since the incident. She strained her ears to hear what he was saying, finding it was only one word, repeated over and over as he hit his bed's headboard.

"Ferb," he gasped in between sobs. Isabella's earlier image of Phineas was shattered. He hadn't been perverted in the slightest. He was lonely. This whole time, she had told herself that Phineas was strong enough to recover and had been using him to support herself. Now she realized that the strength was only a façade he put up to protect and encourage her. While he supported her, who supported him?

"Stop crying Phineas," she told him as she grabbed the edge of one of the blankets. He turned to look at her with puffy red eyes as she crawled into bed with him. He didn't object when she wiggled her way into his arms. The position was uncomfortable for people that hadn't shared a bed with someone since they were infants, but it was far more comfortable than sleeping alone, easy prey for the nightmares of both minds. They would need to support each other in the coming times as life got harder. These two weren't fighting just to rebuild their city. They were fighting to rebuild their lives. Alone, that would be impossible, but together, they would withstand anything.


	2. Chapter 2

A Note From Zoakdo

I had received many reviews asking me to continue this story in the past, but I never did and I believed it to have been forgotten. However, after recieving a new review as lately as this morning, I believe an explanation is due. It is painful to say this, but it is very unlikely that this story shall be continued. I would hate myself if I did nothing more than just proclaim that, so give me an opportunity to explain myself.

The question I pose to anyone who wants this story to continue is this: what next? I know that, as the author, it is my job to provide the answer and for my readers to enjoy, but I honestly I ask for you to conceive what I could do next. Most of the cast of the original show was killed in Meapless in Seattle, giving me a very limited cast to draw from without overloading the story with OC's. More importantly is the possible direction to take the story. The tone of the original as well as the first chapter prevents anything humorous and/or lighthearted from coming about without ruining the tone of everything before it. After fighting off an alien robot army, I can't take it in an action direction without introducing some new villain I pulled out of nowhere, again potentially screwing up the story. The only route that made sense to go on was the drama route. Even this option is plagued with problems. I could do a normal romantic drama, but with the characters dealing with the trauma the events of Meapless undoubtedly left them with, that would feel completely out of place. The only true direction I could take this story without being disappointed in it would be a heart-wrenching drama that explored the psyches of a pair of teens dealing with the complete destruction of their worlds and their tortured consciousness, dealing with themes like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, survivor's guilt, and probably even suicide. While there are probably some who would enjoy such a story, I am not capable of writing it. I do not believe I would be able to describe these conditions and the sufferings of those that have it realistically and tastefully while not underselling the severity of them. Also, knowing myself, I would almost certainly not provide a happy ending to the story, instead having it end sadly and probably quite tragically. Instead of leading to this, I feel better leaving it with the hopeful it it already has.

I apologize if you were kept waiting, but what I posted above is the honest truth. Please do not spam the reviews with requests to continue the story regardless of my concerns. I feel that the story should be finished here before I take it further and ruin it.


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